Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Another day, another anti-Israel resolution at the United Nations -- this one dressed up in the faux trappings of an assist to Palestinian women. What this resolution really amounts to is one more reason for America to stop funding the UN.

Lest that sound overwrought, let's peer into the UN boudoir whence came this resolution, which passed by a wide margin last week under the anodyne and oh-so-UN title: "Situation of and Assistance to Palestinian Women." Sounds reasonable, perhaps?

Not a chance. This particular resolution came from the UN Commission on the Status of Women, which advertises itself on its web site as "the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women." At least, that's the official blurb. In practice -- regardless of the damage to women -- this 45-member commission appears dedicated above all to promoting moral equivalence between democracies and tyrannies, between the likes of Belgium and Belarus, Israel and Iran -- all of which are currently members. Though in the case of this resolution, moral equivalence would be an overly kind description. The commission evidently prefers to savage Israel while romancing the likes of Iran.

And Iran, notorious for its repression of women, evidently finds this UN Commission on the Status of Women so simpatico that Tehran's Islamic regime went to the trouble of getting itself elected by its UN colleagues to a four-year term on the commission back in 2010. When that expired, Iran got itself reelected to its current term, which extends to 2019.

For anyone who genuinely cares about the situation of women (Palestinian or otherwise), Iran's abiding presence on this commission ought to set off alarms that something has gone very wrong with this UN conclave on "gender equality." But this commission, despite its name, is not really about women; for this gang, women are merely a vehicle for more traditional UN pursuits, such as anti-Semitism and self-serving raw propaganda -- or so this resolution goes far to demonstrate.

OK, so what exactly is this resolution? It was introduced this month by one of Iran's closest pals on the erstwhile women's commission: Ecuador. As the draft text of the resolution informs us, Ecuador introduced it "on behalf of the States that are members of the Group of 77 and China." What is the Group of 77? With 134 members, it's the largest voting bloc at the UN, consisting of just over two-thirds of the UN's 193 member states, plus the Palestinian Authority. The G-77 has an unfortunate proclivity for choosing, as leaders of it flagship chapter in New York, such exemplars of misogyny and/or misrule as Sudan, Yemen and Bolivia . As chair for 2017 of its dealings at the UN's massive complex in Vienna, the G-77 has tapped Iran.

Anyway, on behalf of this gang, Ecuador introduced this resolution purporting to help Palestinian women. This document amounts to a five-page rant that blames all ills, woes and troubles of Palestinian women on -- you guessed it -- Israel. There is no direct mention in this resolution of any Palestinian role in the grievances of Palestinians; no reference to the lack of democratic rule among Palestinians; no expression of concern, for instance, that Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a Palestinian group that happens to be not only terrorist, but misogynist. In the alternate cosmos of this Ecuador-sponsored UN resolution, there is just one vast villain in the lives of Palestinian women, and -- courtesy of Ecuador and the rest of the G-77 -- the country cast as that villain is the democratic state of Israel. That is truly twisted, not least because Israel in reality stands out -- especially in the Middle East -- as a model of freedom and equality for women. (But, as I noted above, the UN commission on women is not really about women, just as the UN Human Rights Council is not as a rule concerned with human rights.)

If you don't mind, I'd rather not quote from this resolution on "Palestinian women." It's such as paragon of propaganda that it really deserves to be quarantined for all time within the confines of the UN. If you're curious about the full details, the New York-based monitoring group "Human Rights Voices" has posted a copy, and you can read it in full here. Suffice it to say that after a lot of deploring and condemning and stressing, this document boils down to a slanderous and single-minded attack on Israel, plus a demand upon the "international community" for yet more money for UN programs for Palestinians.

This resolution was adopted last week by a vote of 30 commission members in favor, with 12 abstaining, and one voting no. That lone dissenting vote was cast by Israel.

The U.S. is not a member of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, so America had no vote (not that a dissenting U.S. vote, alongside Israel's, would have stopped this UN resolution). The U.S. Mission, under Ambassador Nikki Haley, did offer a protest, releasing a statement that:

The United States strongly objects to this biased and counterproductive resolution as well as this body's insistence on including political elements and one-sided condemnations. This political posturing detracts from the real challenges at hand -- problems we should all commit to solving.

The U.S. statement went on to stress that America is committed to "practical and effective support of the Palestinian people, including Palestinian women." According to the statement, America's support includes its role as the single largest donor to UNRWA, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to which the U.S. in 2016 alone gave more than $359 million.

It's time the U.S. government recognized that America's huge donations to the UN's sprawling conglomerate of programs-for-Palestinians actually resolve nothing and appease no one. On the contrary, American money is fueling the problems. It is illuminating -- or it ought to be -- that this latest anti-Israel resolution from the UN, piggy-backing on "the situation" of Palestinian women, followed a report on the same theme by the UN secretary-general, which included the following litany of UN offices currently involved in "assistance" to Palestinian women (boldface mine):

Unless indicated otherwise, the report is based on contributions and information submitted by entities of the United Nations system that provide assistance to Palestinian women. It includes contributions from the following United Nations entities: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the Secretariat, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and its Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund ( UNICEF), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ( UNODC), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East ( UNRWA), the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women ( UN-Women), the World Food Programme ( WFP) and the World Health Organization ( WHO). It also includes information provided by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia ( ESCWA).

By my count, that's at least 15 UN offices, agencies and/or special programs all involved in assisting Palestinian women. With slight variations, this has been going on for decades. Yet somehow the UN reports, over and over, that the situation is endlessly dire. And while blaming and condemning Israel, the UN demands that yet more money flow to the aid of the Palestinians, via the UN.

This routine does not deserve to be described as "assistance" to women. There may a spattering of aid in all this, but in the main this entire setup is a shakedown. Effectively it is an extortion racket that targets not only Israel (and its turf, and legitimacy as a state) but the U.S. (and its great rolling river of tax dollars).

This UN-abetted racket has become big business for Palestinian bosses, and a trough in which American tax dollars are transformed into a grand muck of resources that nourish the lies, bigotries, jobs and wallets of far too many officials at the United Nations. And for the worst regimes associated with the UN (Iran and its pals come to mind) this is a political bonanza, underwritten by the Great Satan.

Any real remedy needs to start with cutting off the American money that helps bankroll this monstrous sham. And as far an anyone's aim is really to help Palestinian women, it's hard to think of a better place to begin than by doing everything possible to remove from their lives -- as well as ours -- the pervasive and too often pernicious presence of the United Nations.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.